How Nintendo Is Taking Over The Japanese Video Game Market One IP At A Time

As Nintendo acquires more and more exclusive publication rights and positions itself to fully integrate social media into the console experience, could there be a sea change on the video game industry's horizon?

The Wii U has been generating a huge amount of buzz in the video game industry lately.

Some argue that the next-gen console is underpowered, and will stumble badly when the offerings from Sony and Microsoft show up.

Others say the graphics are in their early stages and will improve.

Still others point out that games like Black Ops II will run at 60 frames per second at 1080p resolution, something the current consoles couldn't hope to achieve.

But graphics are really secondary to what makes this latest Nintendo console so interesting.

Nor is the fancy tablet controller particularly intriguing.

For that matter, it's not really the console itself that makes the Wii U an important step in Nintendo's evolution.

What makes the Wii U so very, very important is its games. In particular, all the exclusive titles we've seen lately, from Bayonetta 2 to ZombiU to Rayman Legends.

Games like Bayonetta originally debuted on Xbox 360 and PS3, but with Sega apparently uninterested in pursuing a sequel, Nintendo recently acquired exclusive publication rights for the action title as well, adding it to the long list of Wii U launch window games.

Meanwhile, both Rayman Legends and ZombiU are being developed by Ubisoft Montpellier exclusively for the Wii U, even though the Rayman games have traditionally been cross-platform.

Other franchises, such as Square Enix's Dragon Quest have become Wii, 3DS, and Wii U exclusives, with Dragon Quest X coming to all three of Nintendo's platforms as an MMORPG.

For a long time, Nintendo was in the business of publishing first-party titles only, sticking to its Mario roots, and releasing the occasional Zelda game.

Largely steered by long-time Nintendo veteran Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo stuck to various iterations of old IPs, creating a massive catalog of Donkey Kong, Luigi, and Wario titles. Third party support remained almost an afterthought.

With the advent of the Wii, and under the management of Satoru Iwata, this began to change.

In 2007, Nintendo bought up Monolith Soft, the developer behind the Xenosaga franchise, acquiring 80% of the company from its former owner Namco Bandai.

Three years later, Nintendo released Xenoblade Chronicles in Japan as an exclusive Wii title, an RPG that would come to North America two years later.

It would appear both Namco Bandai and Capcom are gravitating toward Nintendo. Certainly Ubisoft is.

With exclusive deals coming fast and furious, rumors that Nintendo is attempting to re-acquire Rare in order to gain access to exclusive publish rights over the Banjo Kazooie IP should come as no surprise.